Chapter 6: Attitudes, Behaviour And Rationalization

Question 1

What are attitudes? (Three components)

Answer 1

Attitude: evaluation of an object in a positive or negative fashion that includes three components.

1) affect: an object (landscape, politician, shoe, etc…)

2) cognition: thoughts that reinforce a persons feelings

3) behaviours: your evaluation of good vs bad that will lead you to approach or avoid an object

Question 2

When attitudes are primed, what happens?

Answer 2

People behave similarly to that!

Attitudes are from the motor cortex

Question 3

How do we measure attitudes?

Answer 3

Attitudes are commonly reported with self report measures (like survey questions)

Question 4

What is the likert scale?

Answer 4

A numerical scale used to access people’s attitudes; a scale that includes a set of possible answers labelled with each extreme.

Ex
1= strongly disagree
7= Strongly agree

Question 5

How can social psychologists better capture other dimensions of attitude?

Answer 5

• They measure the accessibility of the attitude (how easily it comes to mind)

To do this, researchers use response latency

Question 6

What is response latency?

Answer 6

The amount of time it takes to respond to a stimulus.

Ex. If they can answer a question about Covid in less then a second they’ll have a stronger attitude towards Covid

Question 7

What is the centrality of attitude, and why do we measure it?

Answer 7

You should react similarly to most important issues. But if you spend too much time on gay marriage it can expose your attitudes

Question 8

What is the implicit attitudes measure?

Answer 8

Use this when you feel like people may be unwilling to voice their true opinions

Affirmative priming and implicit association test

Ex.
Flowers. Vomit
(Good) (Bad)

-use something like guns to see if they feel it’s good or bad.

Question 9

How do researchers use physical closeness as signals of attitudes?

Answer 9

Closer a person gets, the better impression they have

Question 10

What are physiological indicators of attitudes?

Answer 10

Heart rate and sweat can indicate people’s fearful attitudes

Question 11

Can we predict behaviour from observed attitudes?

Answer 11

Not really? Attitudes don’t tend to directly predict behaviour. There are many situational factors that influence behaviour.

Ex. 1930s study with Chinese couple

Question 12

What happens when we introspect the reasons for our attitudes?

Answer 12

Sometimes we make assumptions about why we do things- which can mislead us.

Ex. Liking someone
Thinking about why we like someone can mislead us into believing we like their most easy to identify traits. Which may not be why we really like them.

Question 13

Is introspection always bad?

Answer 13

No!
Sometimes the reasons driving attitudes are easy to identify IF the attitude is mostly cognitive (easy to identify).

Question 14

What is the mismatch between general attitudes and individual targets?

Answer 14

Highly specific attitudes tend to explain behaviours

Ex. Willingness to help a gay men is determined if he fits the prototype of a gay man.

Question 15

What is the cognitive dissonance theory?

Answer 15

The inconsistency between a persons thoughts and actions create an averse emotional state.

Question 16

What is the relationship between decisions and dissonance?

Answer 16

When you soundly decide on one choice, you’ll tend to rationalize it, even if the experience was not favoured before.

Ex.
Before bets: “fair chance of them winning”

After bets: Rationalization

Question 17

Does rationalization only happen after making a final choice.

Answer 17

No.

A lot of it comes after the choice, but there is some before too.

Question 18

What is effort justification?

Answer 18

The tendency to to reduce dissonance by justifying the time, effort, or money devoted to something that ended up disappointing.
Ex. Childless people imagine parents cleaning up kiddie poop “my life’s not so bad”

Question 19

What is induced/forced compliance?

Answer 19

Compelling people to act in ways that are inconsistent with their beliefs in order to elicit dissonance and change their original attitudes.

Question 20

How do people avoid dissonance if they don’t have a significant reason to make a choice?

Answer 20

Devaluing the other option.

Ex. Kid toy example.

Devaluing the 2nd choice toy

Question 21

Does inconsistency produce dissonance?

Answer 21

A given inconsistency will cause dissonance if it implicates our core sense of self.

Ex. If you think about yourself as rational, moral and kind
But choose not to act in that way.
Causes dissonance

Question 22

How can we better understand conflicts/inconsistencies with ourselves?

Answer 22

Think about it through others!

Ex. Tech savvy friend
If he refuses to help with a tech issue
CONFLICT

Question 23

We will experience dissonance if: (three factors)

Answer 23

1) the free choice to help someone

2) was the behaviour justified? (Were they busy?)

3) if the negative consequences were bad for not helping vs mild and inconvenient at best.

Question 24

How does foreseeability effect dissonance?

Answer 24

If we can foresee the negative consequences to our actions then dissonance

But if the consequences are not foreseeable, then no dissonance

Question 25

Can self affirmation reduce dissonance?

Answer 25

Yes it can! “Sure I sucked at history but at least I’m great in physics!”

Question 26

Is dissonance universal?

Answer 26

Japanese participants = unaffected by self affirmation manipulation.

They also showed no dissonance effect!

But!!! If they did so,etching out of character and thought others were watching, then dissonance.

Question 27

What is the self perception theory?

Answer 27

People often look at their behaviour and the context they’re in to infer their own attitudes.
This is the same way we understand others attitudes.

Ex. I would not say AP history is interesting if it isn’t, therefore it must be fun!

Question 28

What is the Crux of self perception theory?

Answer 28

We use the cues around us to figure out how we feel.

Physical states effect how we feel

Ex. Happy motions cause a happy attitude

Question 29

What is system justification theory?

Answer 29

People want to see the current social/ political system as fair and just.

People that the system favours = support

People that aren’t supported = desire fair system

Question 30

How can people justify their position as less valued?

Answer 30

Ex. “Women might not have much power, but they’re warmer and more socially connected then men!”

Question 31

What is terror management theory?

Answer 31

When scared of death, people turn to symbolic immortality with the valued cultural world (views and beliefs they followed) and cultural standards.

One immortal idea: kids, grand kids etc

Question 32

What happens when morality is salient and their country is criticized?

Answer 32

People will be more hostile, cuz their country is their cultural world view.

Question 33

What happens when morality is salient but you believe in life after death?

Answer 33

You shouldn’t be too concerned with living on symbolically.